http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE TWO transcendent political figures of the past
quarter century are Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton,
both two-term presidents. We are only starting to digest Mr. Clinton's
legacy and no doubt we'll gradually learn more of what happened
behind the scenes. But we are already in the midst of a full reappraisal
of Ronald Reagan as he marks his 90th birthday today. A dozen years
after he flew into the California sunset on what had been Air Force
One, Mr. Reagan still has a profound influence on our politics and
national character.

He entered office proposing a supply-tax cut that was deemed "dead
on arrival" in Congress and wound up not only passing but ushering in
eight years of sustained economic growth. Now a new president,
George W. Bush, is proposing a similar tax cut--and is likewise
overcoming initial skepticism.

Other Reagan initiatives--from a missile-defense system to a
free-trade zone encompassing the entire Western Hemisphere--are on
the front burner of Bush initiatives. Few any longer disagree that Mr.
Reagan deserves much credit for ending the Cold War and inspiring
Americans to greater morale and optimism.

A new book from the Free Press, "Reagan in His Own Hand," has
unearthed Mr. Reagan's handwritten prepresidential writings and makes
a strong case that he was a supple and subtle writer. Michael Barone,
co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, says the book "shows
that he was a voracious reader, a persuasive logician and a graceful
writer. And it shows, if there is still reason to doubt it, that he did his
own thinking."

Mr. Reagan also had a profound impact on thousands of people now
active in politics or public service. He inspired countless elected
officials to run for office. "The Great Communicator" impressed upon me
the power of the written and spoken word. While he was governor of
California, I will never forget his taking time out of his schedule after a
television taping to show me--a mere 15-year-old high school
student--how he could instantly arrange his packs of anecdote-filled
3-by-5 index cards into a speech tailor-made for almost any audience.

Those index cards also played a major role in changing the life of Jim
Rogan, who was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1996 from
Pasadena and became a House impeachment manager. Defeated for
re-election last November in a demographically changing district, Mr.
Rogan is now a top candidate for a post in a Bush Justice Department.
Last year, he told me of the impact Mr. Reagan had on his career.

Jim Rogan grew up on the wrong side of the tracks near San Francisco.
His mother, a felon, was often on welfare. His stepfather was an
alcoholic. He found escape in his collection of political memorabilia. In
1970 Gov. Reagan was giving a speech to a GOP audience in Walnut
Creek. Mr. Rogan, then 12, and a friend waited outside the hall for the
governor to leave.

Mr. Reagan and his entourage swept by and actually got into their cars
and started to drive away. But then the governor noticed a young
boy's sad face and ordered the car to stop. He asked him what he
wanted, and young Jim Rogan said he wanted more than anything in
the world to have something for his political collection. Reagan said his
staff would disapprove, but he nonetheless would give him the eight
3-by-5 handwritten index cards he had just used to deliver his speech.

Mr. Rogan subsequently dropped out of high school and supported
himself with jobs ranging from bartender to bouncer at an adult-movie
theater. But he worked his way through the University of California at
Berkeley and then won admission to UCLA Law School. As he began his
third year of law school, he was broke and on the verge of quitting.
Then he remembered the Reagan index cards he had stashed away.

Mr. Reagan had just become president and the cards were suddenly
valuable. Torn between wanting to keep a prized possession and his
desire to finish law school, he reluctantly sold cards two through eight
to a collector for $1,500. With that money he finished law school, and
went on to become a deputy district attorney, then a lead prosecutor
of the Hard Core Gang Unit and, at 33, the youngest municipal court
judge in the state.

At 35, he was elected to the state Assembly where he quickly became
the first Republican majority leader of that body in a quarter-century.
He was elected to Congress at 39. "All of that flowed from being
blessed with having those valuable index cards from Ronald Reagan
when I really needed them."

Just before Mr. Rogan undertook his duties as a House impeachment
manager, he was leafing through a political-memorabilia catalog and
saw his old set of index cards for sale. He snapped them up and
remembers how his hands trembled when he opened the package
containing them. "The irony is that the fellow I sold them to had taken
much better care of them during the intervening 17 years than I had of
the one card I had kept," he says. He has since donated the cards to
the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. where Mark
Burson, the library's executive director, says they will eventually go on
display.

To visit that library, where I was privileged to give the Reagan Lecture
last year, is to realize all over again how much impact Mr. Reagan
continues to make. Mr. Reagan's success made it harder to paint
future conservative presidential candidates--including George W.
Bush--as ignorant or scary.

Mr. Reagan was always very modest about his own accomplishments.
He kept a sign on his desk every day he was both governor and
president: "There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't
care who gets the credit."

Characteristically, Mr. Reagan ended his presidential farewell address
by saying he had wanted to inspire the American people "to change
the country" but they instead "ended up changing the world." And how
did he do? "Not bad. Not bad at all."

In the years since he left public life, both citizens and historians have
come to see how significant his accomplishments really were. We are
only now--as the Clinton administration gives way to a new Bush
administration--fully appreciating those Reagan qualities that were "the
best of
him."

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